The 5 AM Power Hour

“Have you ever heard of the 5 AM power hour?” The beautiful red haired actress asked.  She did that thing with her mouth where you could tell she wanted to smile, but was trying to hold it all back.  She was sitting primly on the couch, legs crossed to one side.  A television host was opposite.  The host was sitting a bit too close for complete comfort, but her fans had grown quite used to her closeness and had even found it to be somewhat endearing at this point.

“No I haven’t,” the host exclaimed. You could tell that she was more than a bit intrigued.

“You begin at 5 AM,” the actress began. “You do 20 minutes of a light workout, then 20 minutes of journaling or meditation and then 20 minutes of learning a new skill.”

“And what skill are you learning?”

“Statistics,” the actress proudly exclaimed before hurriedly continuing.  “The thought is that you dedicate 20 minutes to your body,  20 minutes to your mind and by that time you are so focused on the next 20 minutes that the skill learning willl be locked into your mind.”

I myself had never heard of such a challenge. I’ve heard of Mark Whalberg’s five AM club where he has posted one video after another of him grunting and moaning, lifting and pushing, for the entirety of that hour and I must admit his way of getting the workout done and over is more of my speed.

I used to wake up at 4:30 AM, meet my running partner at 5 AM, go for a five to six mile run before then heading to the gym to grunt and moan, lift and push, but the challenge that the actress was talking about seemed altogether different, more gentlier to the body, the mind, but still a challenge nonetheless.  

As school begins for me yet again, for the 21st year no less, I need something to take the disgruntlement out of my heart, my mind.  It’s hard to believe that I have been in this industry for so long, especially when I still feel like that newbie teacher.  I still regret falling into this path I will have you know; I still expect more from students, from their parents, although now things don’t bother me quite like they used to.  But in my experience, educators as a whole are wound a bit too tight, meanwhile I have turned into - I  very much don’t care about any of this because it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day - type of person.  It’s not like we are curing cancer and I doubt, with how the American education system is going, passing kids along, pretending that their scores are improving when in all actuality the test has just been dumbed down beyond all recognition, cancer is going to be cured by this current generation of students, but maybe I'm wrong.

I sometimes think I should start wearing a clown costume, learn how to juggle or swallow swords so that I can entertain instead of educate because that’s what the students want and by all means if the students want it, we must provide it.

Needless to say, I am needing something that would quiet the negative whisperings when I get to school because teachers are not only wound too tight, they are also full of complaints.

So,

I have decided to embark on this 5 AM power hour, although I have to wake up around 4:30 to actually begin at 5.  This is my second week actually  and I’m really quite proud of myself.  It has caused me to pause a bit more.  Take things slower in the morning although it’s really at an ungodly hour, but I have always been a morning person so it doesn’t bother me all that much.  Journaling is perhaps the hardest component.  Writing for 20 minutes makes you have to dig deeper into your thoughts and force them out, but once my journal is closed I really do feel much better.  Almost like my feelings are trapped between the pages of my journal and are forced to stay there like they have been put in some sort of word time out.

Setting the mood helps.  I light a candle, make some tea, and pretend for a moment that I’m a brilliant writer, who is reclusive, lives on top of an introverted hill, estranged from all of society.

I don’t know how long I will continue with this whole power hour thing, maybe I will report back, maybe I won’t, but for now I’m enjoying the challenge and do feel powerful for accomplishing so much before the sun can even kiss the sky.